Price. When it comes to manufacturing application accessories, or more colloquially stigmatized as “commodity” goods – price is the gatekeeper. No matter what the value add or technology advantages a particular brand may be introducing to the market, those benefits fade to white noise with price as well as discount dominating the conversation.

And a quick market search reveals why this occurs. With now Industry 5.0 starting to trend, suppliers are vying for attention in an already saturated market. From IO Link and smart equipped signaling devices that can do everything from playing curated animations and audio to even sending text alerts to machine operators, the features and key advantages can all become overwhelming and coagulate into each other.

However, these often overlooked key features can be the difference between planning routine maintenance or dealing with the financial losses of a down manufacturing line. Depending on your applications, unique features offered by the various industry players can help to not only alert your machine operators to problems but even go beyond condition monitoring into the realm of predictive maintenance.

At Leuze electronic, the pairing of our Advanced Series multicolor signal tower, with our Smart Core sensor cable provides machine operators the ability to do the later. Leuze’s Smart Core sensor cable is equipped with a special wire that breaks signaling when the cable has reached 80% of its lifecycle. This feature is twofold; this not only makes the sensor cable a perfect fit to power sensors on moving apparati such as welding robots – but also allows machine operators to schedule maintenance predictively.